Day Total - 73.4 miles
Trip Total - 1,407.9 miles
Spending the night in the last town before the border. Also, Washington dogs didn't let me down in their last hurrah: I had to fend off a pack of 5 late in the day.
This morning Kevin and I parted ways. We would be following the same route to Bellingham, but I had a lot farther to go than he did. I was trying to get as close to the border as possible, which meant at least 25 miles past Bellingham, so I needed to get an early start. Therefore, at 9 AM, we said our goodbyes and I pedaled north on Highway 20.
Almost immediately, I encountered trouble. Just two miles in, I came to the Deception Pass Bridge. It was built in two sections, with a rocky islet in the middle, and it's also exceptionally narrow with no shoulder. I decided to walk my bike, but as I tried to go across the northern section, I hit a snag. The barriers separating the sidewalk from the road were so close to the railing on the side of the bridge that I couldn't fit my bike through! I had to go all the way back to the southern end of the bridge and ride across it, because the barriers prevented me from entering the road anywhere else. I waited for a break in traffic, then gunned it while taking the middle of the right lane (it would be a lot more dangerous if I stuck to the far right and a car tried to pass). Fortunately, the bridge was only about 3/4 of a mile long, but it was harrowing nonetheless.
I was now in Skagit County, which I intended to cross as quickly as possible. Highway 20, despite its heavy traffic flow, has a very wide shoulder across Fidalgo Island, so I made good progress back toward the mainland. The skies were gray but not really threatening rain, which made it ideal cycling weather - staying cool was not a problem. After the spur from Anacortes came in, the road became a commercial strip for a few miles, until at last I rode over the high bridge to the mainland.
At the first opportunity, I turned off the highway to follow Padilla Bay on side roads. The first section was actually a bike path, although the way the vehicle barriers were constructed made it very difficult to get the bike onto and off of it (lifting 70-80 pounds of bike and load is awkward, to say the least). I continued the quick pace through here, particularly once I reached the flat section at the head of the bay. With a slight tailwind, I flew across the plain onto Highway 11 and the Chuckanut Mountains (Gold Medal, Best Name for Mountain Range).
Chuckanut Drive/Hwy. 11 south of Bellingham turned out to be one of the best roads of the trip. It rolled up and down and twisted right along the coastal cliffs. The surface was good for the most part too, and there was very little traffic. It reminded me a lot of Highway 1 in California, except without RVs and with a lot more trees. It started to drizzle a bit in the middle of this section, but I didn't care. I was having so much fun riding the road that I didn't bother to stop and put a jacket on.
As the route flattened out, I entered Bellingham, which was a little surprising. It hadn't been long since I'd crossed into Whatcom County, the last in Washington, and I was already about 40 miles into the ride at 12:30. After a slightly confusing section, I made it onto the main bike route through town. With a population of nearly 70,000, Bellingham is the largest city on the route between San Francisco and the Canadian border, and if I had more time, I definitely would have stopped to explore a bit. As it stood though, the drizzle was getting more sustained, and British Columbia wasn't getting any closer.
North of Bellingham, I rode next to I-5 for about 5 miles before turning off through Ferndale. From there, I rode gently rolling roads west and then north toward Birch Bay. I was looking for a bed at the hostel there, but on my way into town, I had the worst dog scare of the trip. Five dogs ran out of a driveway as I was stopping at a T junction. There was nowhere I could go, since I couldn't see the other road in one direction, and all of the dogs were big and angry. So I flipped the safety on my pepper spray, and one by one, I hit each dog square in the face with a stream of concentrated pain. It was almost like a video game, with the dogs coming one by one, seemingly unendingly, but finally it stopped and I got out of there as fast as I could.
When I pulled up to the hostel, it looked empty. The door was locked, no one was there, and the lights were off. I decided to search for motels just up the road in the border town of Blaine, which was a good thing. The hostel turned out to charge $30 for a dorm bed, which was not much less than a private hotel room. I decided to just ride to Blaine and get as close to the border as possible. I ended up making a wrong turn on my way out of Birch Bay, but I realized it quickly enough to get back on track and into Blaine. It was my longest day of the trip - when I pulled into the Anchor Inn, the odometer read 73.4 miles. More importantly, I was less than a mile from the 49th parallel and Canada.
Trip Total - 1,407.9 miles
Spending the night in the last town before the border. Also, Washington dogs didn't let me down in their last hurrah: I had to fend off a pack of 5 late in the day.
This morning Kevin and I parted ways. We would be following the same route to Bellingham, but I had a lot farther to go than he did. I was trying to get as close to the border as possible, which meant at least 25 miles past Bellingham, so I needed to get an early start. Therefore, at 9 AM, we said our goodbyes and I pedaled north on Highway 20.
Almost immediately, I encountered trouble. Just two miles in, I came to the Deception Pass Bridge. It was built in two sections, with a rocky islet in the middle, and it's also exceptionally narrow with no shoulder. I decided to walk my bike, but as I tried to go across the northern section, I hit a snag. The barriers separating the sidewalk from the road were so close to the railing on the side of the bridge that I couldn't fit my bike through! I had to go all the way back to the southern end of the bridge and ride across it, because the barriers prevented me from entering the road anywhere else. I waited for a break in traffic, then gunned it while taking the middle of the right lane (it would be a lot more dangerous if I stuck to the far right and a car tried to pass). Fortunately, the bridge was only about 3/4 of a mile long, but it was harrowing nonetheless.
I was now in Skagit County, which I intended to cross as quickly as possible. Highway 20, despite its heavy traffic flow, has a very wide shoulder across Fidalgo Island, so I made good progress back toward the mainland. The skies were gray but not really threatening rain, which made it ideal cycling weather - staying cool was not a problem. After the spur from Anacortes came in, the road became a commercial strip for a few miles, until at last I rode over the high bridge to the mainland.
At the first opportunity, I turned off the highway to follow Padilla Bay on side roads. The first section was actually a bike path, although the way the vehicle barriers were constructed made it very difficult to get the bike onto and off of it (lifting 70-80 pounds of bike and load is awkward, to say the least). I continued the quick pace through here, particularly once I reached the flat section at the head of the bay. With a slight tailwind, I flew across the plain onto Highway 11 and the Chuckanut Mountains (Gold Medal, Best Name for Mountain Range).
Chuckanut Drive/Hwy. 11 south of Bellingham turned out to be one of the best roads of the trip. It rolled up and down and twisted right along the coastal cliffs. The surface was good for the most part too, and there was very little traffic. It reminded me a lot of Highway 1 in California, except without RVs and with a lot more trees. It started to drizzle a bit in the middle of this section, but I didn't care. I was having so much fun riding the road that I didn't bother to stop and put a jacket on.
As the route flattened out, I entered Bellingham, which was a little surprising. It hadn't been long since I'd crossed into Whatcom County, the last in Washington, and I was already about 40 miles into the ride at 12:30. After a slightly confusing section, I made it onto the main bike route through town. With a population of nearly 70,000, Bellingham is the largest city on the route between San Francisco and the Canadian border, and if I had more time, I definitely would have stopped to explore a bit. As it stood though, the drizzle was getting more sustained, and British Columbia wasn't getting any closer.
North of Bellingham, I rode next to I-5 for about 5 miles before turning off through Ferndale. From there, I rode gently rolling roads west and then north toward Birch Bay. I was looking for a bed at the hostel there, but on my way into town, I had the worst dog scare of the trip. Five dogs ran out of a driveway as I was stopping at a T junction. There was nowhere I could go, since I couldn't see the other road in one direction, and all of the dogs were big and angry. So I flipped the safety on my pepper spray, and one by one, I hit each dog square in the face with a stream of concentrated pain. It was almost like a video game, with the dogs coming one by one, seemingly unendingly, but finally it stopped and I got out of there as fast as I could.
When I pulled up to the hostel, it looked empty. The door was locked, no one was there, and the lights were off. I decided to search for motels just up the road in the border town of Blaine, which was a good thing. The hostel turned out to charge $30 for a dorm bed, which was not much less than a private hotel room. I decided to just ride to Blaine and get as close to the border as possible. I ended up making a wrong turn on my way out of Birch Bay, but I realized it quickly enough to get back on track and into Blaine. It was my longest day of the trip - when I pulled into the Anchor Inn, the odometer read 73.4 miles. More importantly, I was less than a mile from the 49th parallel and Canada.
View Day 36 - Oak Harbor, WA-Blaine, WA in a larger map
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